The Wine-Jazz Nexus

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Workers begin digging the trench. In the left photo, a section of the old pipe is visible at the right.

Two vines dug up at once.

The trench runs through the line of vines.

Apparently successful replanting.

Last month, we called Roto Rooter to fix a plumbing problem that became a total replacement of the outside pipe leading to the main city line. The line ran diagonally across our back yard through our grape vines.

The workers identified two vines in the path of the trench they’d have to dig. They came up with what I considered a pointless idea but worth a try. They dug up both plants in one backhoe bucketful and set them aside.

I put the two uprooted plants in a big tub with soil and lots of water. They lived in that tub for a day and a half. When the workers were finished, I replanted the vines in 2-foot-deep holes filled with a mixture of peat, vermiculite and soil. Then I added lots root stimulator and unknown gallons of water.

Immediately, both vines wilted. The effort seemed more like hospice, not recovery. I don’t have photos of the tub or the worst stage of the vines’ decline. I thought they were dead.

After about two weeks of withering, the few remaining leaves stopped decaying. Within a month, the plants shot out new growth. Now they look to be entirely viable.

The workers, who are master plumbers, not just earth movers, did a great job not just with the task at hand but also in their attempt to preserve landscaping.

People who have schooled me in viticulture have said that transplanting of mature vines just isn’t done (cuttings are the way to propagate). So this case of apparently successful replanting is quite an unexpected happy outcome.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

An April frost, a huge limb falling on the vines in a storm, and a bit of black rot diminished the yield of the urban vineyard, but a record-high sugar measurement this year promised better quality wine.

Two things happened this year for the first time: all eight plants contributed fruit, and the vines fulfilled their function as a tent for the grapes, providing shade and protection from pests. In earlier years, we had patches of leafy expanse and other spots where grapes were dangling more or less exposed.

We tried bird netting for the first time in five years, and it worked. I abandoned bird netting in 2010 because the birds found ways to stick their beaks into the spaces and grab grapes one at a time. Worse, some birds using this technique got caught in the netting and died horrible deaths. Oddly, this year we had smarter birds that mostly left the netting alone.

The "shroud" was used to protect small areas of clusters.

Netting proved to be much easier to maintain than the row cover we had been using to cloak the row of vines in a “shroud.” We did use a bit of row cover for areas of isolated clusters.

Like row cover, bird netting encased the entire plant, secured along the ground with garden staples on either side.

I suspect the long dry spell was responsible for this week's remarkable spike in the brix up to 20, which is the highest reading I've ever seen from these plants. The forecast calls for rain later this week, which would dilute the sugar content, so I decided to act now.

We harvested about 20 pounds of St. Vincent today (right). I’m amazed that we got that much in the face of all the natural obstacles this year brought.

Friday, August 8, 2014

I had been looking for a place for this memory of hearing Charlie Haden with Ornette Coleman. It didn't seem to fit in my weekly music column, so it's here, adjacent to a reprint of the column.Haden the agitatorRoughly 40 years ago, some time after I got my driver’s license and before I finished college, I saw the Ornette Coleman quartet at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago.

Coleman was wearing a full-length, bright blue robe covered with silvery stars and moons. Dewey Redman wore a dashiki. This was the mid-'70s — no coat and tie and starchy white shirts. Haden stood out in his ordinary walkaround pants and shirt.

Coleman played long fluid passages punctuated with jarring blasts and shrieks. Dewey Redman on tenor growled, burbled and ululated. Drummer Ed Blackwell held things together, driving the band in lively swing figures with New Orleans flavors.

Eyes squinted shut, the bass player agitated the others, spewing speedy, intricate walking lines, weaving rugged textures of brief repeating patterns that felt almost like strumming, mixing motifs and toggling back and forth.

I had never heard a bass played that way, and I had never heard a group stirring up so much tension. They were not exactly playing together; they were playing against each other. It was thrilling, a little scary, and widely ear-opening.

Haden’s post-Coleman work, especially with Quartet West, became decidedly gentler, but I think the overarching quality of his work was to bring to the music whatever he thought it needed.Haden leaves city a jazz legacy with bright momentsPublished in the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader, August 8, 2014This content cannot be reproduced without permission of the News-Leader.

Charlie Haden, the great bassist who died last month, made an impression in Springfield as part of his family's band back in the 1950's, but his recent contributions to the city's jazz community promise long-lasting rewards.

Randy Hamm, director of the Missouri State University Jazz Studies Program, came to know Haden during the conceptual stages of the MSU program and the first Springfield Jazz Festival, during the end of the last decade. Hamm also had a mind-blowing musical experience playing with Haden at that time.

Planners recruited Haden as guest artist for the inaugural festival and as artist in residence for the first year of the MSU Jazz Studies Program. Haden's presence was crucial to the launch of both efforts, Hamm said.

In Springfield in 2010 for the first festival, Haden said he was impressed with the renovation of the Gillioz Theatre and pleased to have the opportunity to perform there with his band, Quartet West.

In 2009, Haden appeared at an important fundraiser for scholarships and equipment for the new program. MSU jazz ensembles provided entertainment for the event at the Kentwood Ballroom on campus. In addition, Hamm on alto saxophone and faculty member Kyle Aho on piano played as a duo.

Haden wasn't planning on playing. He didn't have his bass, and he was uncomfortable using other people's equipment, Hamm said. However, after a couple of tunes by the duo, Haden stepped forward and joined Hamm and Aho.

"We let him call the tunes he wanted to play," Hamm said. "One of the tunes that he called, which he had recorded several times, was 'Body and Soul.' "

"I tell you, playing with Charlie Haden in that intimate setting, without a drummer — that Steinway in that room, the acoustics — it was one of the most rewarding musical experiences I've ever had."

The three musicians had never played together as a trio. It was a leap of faith. "Just to call a tune, there was immediate, deep trust all around," Hamm said.

He paused for a moment, looking for words:

"Playing with Charlie Haden must be what it feels like to ride on a magic carpet. His time, his intonation, his note choices, his rhythmic feel. It was gorgeous. I didn't want to stop."

The Jazz Studies Program has graduated its first group of musicians. The fifth annual Springfield Jazz Festival is Oct. 3.

Ed Peaco writes about locally grown Ozarks music for the News-Leader. Contact him at 417-413-9029 or EdPeaco@gmail.com.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

This is the jazz CDs section of Amoeba. The store also sells 33s, 45s and 78s.

During a recent visit to Los Angeles, I ventured into Amoeba, one of the last enduring record stores and one of the largest. My mind went back two decades when I spent hours in such places, flipping through the stacks. However, we had many sightseeing priorities in the Hollywood area, so I challenged myself to find a worthy CD in 10 minutes or so.

"Tring-A-Ling" with the Amoeba price sticker.

I wanted a CD that was probably out of print and only available at Amoeba or from collectors online. I didn't achieve that level of obscurity, but I did find, within the self-imposed time constraint, "Tring-A-Ling" by Joanne Brackeen. The 1977 LP was reissued as a CD in 2009.

Michael Brecker appears on four of the seven tracks. While Brackeen and Brecker both are in the early stages of their careers, Brackeen sounds like the full arc of her artistry is already achieved, while Brecker is still in a developmental stage.

Brecker: He's running the tenor at high speed, but he's not negotiating the curves all that well. He's yippy in spots, and, on "Haiti-B," he's bending notes into howls like a mournful beagle. Two and three decades later — as heard on a couple of my favorites, "Tales from the Hudson" and his last album, "Pilgrimage" — he had become the master we all know, infusing emotional intensity where there was once just velocity.

Brackeen: The complex yet playful compositions are already here, as are the sprawling piano solos, roiling in crosscurrents. Many jazz musicians who find their path early and follow it through life usually are not very interesting to hear in their later years. However, Brackeen is an exception. As you go forward in her career, the work is just as absorbing even though the concept hasn't changed.

Some friendly folks we met at Tyler Ridge Vineyard Winery invited us on an outing to the French restaurant in Fordland, La Galette Berrichonne. The expedition included a stop at Whispering Oaks, where we acquired another bottle of St. Vincent, made in a dry, supple style.

La Galette Berrichonne does not serve wine, but it welcomes diners to bring their own wine, no corking fee assessed.

We took the bottle of St. Vincent into the restaurant, not knowing whether it would be a good pairing for anything on the preset menu.

However, the Whispering Oaks St. Vincent stood up admirably to all seven courses!

Seafood au gratin

Coq au vin croustade (chicken)

Quiche Lorraine with salad

Pork tenderloin with port sauce

Raspberry sorbet

Brie with slices of strawberries

Tarte aux cerises (cherries)

The touches of fruit and the emphasis on lighter meats helped the St. Vincent run the table. A great discovery. The US 60 Corridor is beginning to become a factor for The Good Life in southern Missouri.

By the way, Lisa Stacy, manager at Majestic Limousines, provided professional and congenial chauffeur service that was, for a big group, rather affordable.

Missouri Wine Snob notesVignoles: Best of the variety tasted on this tour: Crisp and not too sweet.

Traminette and Vidal (semi-sweet) have citrus notes.

Catawba has progressed through several stages over more than a decade of development at Whispering Oaks. The current Catawba is sweet, bringing out the full fruit flavor but keeping that grape’s unruliness in check.

From a big slate of wines by Jim Traver, one selection was made with advice from customers. With this sweet red, made by committee as his website suggests, he intends to please crowds. “Curl up on a winter’s night with a glass of Bear’s Den Red,” Traver says with a warm and persuasive tone.His top-selling wine also has an animal-inspired name. Dog’s Breath Red is lighter and sweeter than Bear’s Den Red.

Dogs and cats populate the winery and environs (no actual bears).

However, Traver’s work area, filled with big tanks and smaller projects in bulbous glass containers, produces wines across the spectrum of dry and sweet, often with uncompromising varietal flavors and earthy essence.

Missouri Wine Snob notesChardonel: Highly spicy with a touch of oak.

Eleven Point White: This blend of 70 percent Vidal and 30 percent Vignoles is assertively dry and fruity.

Vignoles choices: The semi-dry has some of the boldness of Eleven Point White. With the semi-sweet Vignoles, that edge is smoothed out.

Peach: Not too sweet, with a strong peach nose but lighter peach flavor, with an overall experience that sometimes suggests a semi-sweet grape wine.

UPDATE!Marechal Foch: Somehow I forgot to mention this lighter wine with the deep red color — one of the pleasant surprises of the trip. It's not as light as most St. Vincents, and it has darker fruit notes such as blackberry, while St. Vincent often has cherry. This is another great example of a successful wine made with a nonstandard grape variety. Cheers!

Down a gravel road through thick woods, you will find Traver Home Winery.